IN TEXAS, RETAIL `BLUE LAWS` HEADED FOR LAST ROUND-UP

Storer Rowley, Chicago TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Texas shoppers can buy beer and milk on Sundays but not mugs or baby bottles. Retailers can sell hammers and screwdrivers but not nails or screws. Buying a blank tape cassette is legal but not a recorded tape.

The peculiar ''blue law'' governing the sale of these and other items, a law that has created widespread confusion among shoppers and inspired some merchants into open defiance, becomes history next weekend, allowing many stores across the Lone Star State to open their doors on Sundays for the first time.

Executives for department stores, among the hardest hit by the blue law, said they are gearing up to serve more customers and expect to reap greater profits. State officials estimate that the law`s repeal could generate more than $550 million in sales in the next two years.

Opponents charge that the change will mean a seven-day workweek for some and that it is ''against the best interests of Texas families.''

A dozen states still have some form of Sunday-closing laws on their books, vestiges of religiously inspired codes dating to the New England Pilgrims, who used to print them on blue paper. Blue laws have been in effect in Texas since 1863.

A repeal of the last Texas blue law, passed in 1961, was signed in May by Gov. Mark White. The law prohibited the sale of 42 categories of items on consecutive weekend days, effectively forcing many stores to close on Sundays because it meant that department stores, for example, were unable to open many sections.

At the same time, 24-hour convenience stores, supermarkets, drugstores and even some K marts were permitted to operate on Sundays, though they could not legally sell any of the banned items.

''Its time had come,'' Mickey Moore, executive vice president of the Texas Retailers Association, said of the repeal. ''The lifestyle in this state has changed.

''There are a lot more two-wage-earner families that don`t take the time to shop during other hours of the week,'' Moore said, ''and a lot of families look at Sunday shopping as a form of recreation. Many firms sell more big-ticket items now on Sunday, when the whole family gets involved.''

The move to repeal the statute began in December, when a group of major department stores in Houston openly defied the law and remained open on Saturdays and Sundays. In the spring, even before the bill was signed, merchants in Austin and San Antonio started opening Sundays.

''There were so many violations in Houston during the Christmas season last year that they couldn`t file suits fast enough to get them heard,'' Moore noted. The courts issued some injunctions, but no retailers were convicted or fined, he said.

Later, executives of Dallas-based Joske`s and other big department store chains formed Texans for Blue Law Repeal Inc. and waged an expensive lobbying campaign in the legislature.

Gary Witkin, executive vice president for Marshall Field & Co. stores, said Sunday openings for the Chicago-based chain`s three Texas department stores will mean ''tremendous shopping, shorter hours and a lot of traffic.'' Though Fields chose not to open its Dallas store on Sundays before the repeal, it did open its two Houston stores. ''In essence, although we were concerned about the laws, the competitive nature of that town forced us to open our doors if we were going to compete effectively,'' he said.

Moore said it appears Texas shoppers are ''reluctantly accepting'' Sunday openings. Stores that opened before the repeal goes into effect next Sunday, he said, reported ''the response has been less than overwhelming.''

Many small stores fear it will be prohibitively expensive to operate seven days a week.

One of them, Kruger Jewelers, ran a full-page advertisement in the Austin American-Statesman in May. It consisted of an open letter to the governor, superimposed on a red, white and blue Texas flag.

The store owners said they were ''thoroughly enraged'' by the repeal bill, arguing that it would inflict ''tremendous hardships'' on families by summoning ''someone`s spouse, parent or child'' to jobs on Sundays. ''Our employees, like all retail-associated employees, cherish Sunday as the one day, the only day, to spend with their families,'' said the letter in large print.

David Kruger, co-owner of the jewelry business, said he will keep his downtown Austin store closed Sundays but will be forced to open his store in a suburban Austin mall or face losing his lease.

''We`ll do some business,'' he said, ''but it`s more important for me to be home with my family than to be up here doing business.''

Steve Anderson, the governor`s legislative liaison, said the repeal law specifies that a retail merchant cannot require an employee to work seven consecutive days and cannot deny an employee a day off for rest or worship.

State Comptroller Bob Bullock has estimated that the repeal will generate $24 million in new state sales taxes in the two-year budget period beginning Sept. 1. It comes when a downturn in the oil industry has left the state`s economy hard-pressed.

William Phipps, executive vice president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said the state increased sales tax revenue by more than $6 million, or 30 percent, in 1982, when Massachusetts repealed its blue law.

Other states that have blue laws are Alabama, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia, according to the Association of General Merchandise Chains, a Washington, D.C., trade group.

Pam Allen, state legislative counsel for the association, said New York`s law also is still on the books, ''but it has been redefined as to be practically unenforceable.''